The city of Kyiv was founded on
the bank of the Dnipro river which was the water route
taken by the Scandinavian warriors and tradesmen to
travel all the way down to the shores of Byzantium. The
ancient chronicles called it “the route from the
Varangians to the Greeks” (Varangians-members of a
Scandinavian people, mostly Swedes, who settled in East
Slavic lands in the 9th century). The fact that Kyiv
commanded this very important trade route contributed
eventually to its rise and predominance over other East
Slavic towns. Kyivan monks and merchants used the same
route in their travels. The merchants travelled both
north and south and monks only south, on their way to
Mount Athos in Greece and further, to Palestine and
Sinai.

Antony
Pechersky (Anthony of the Caves), the founder of the Kyiv
Pechersk Lavra Monastery (Lavra - from “laura,” a big
Orthodox monastery), one of the sacred places of the all
the Eastern Orthodox Christians, was reported to have
travelled to the southern lands but according to recent
historical findings he did not go further that the town
of Lyubech in the lands of his native Chernihiv. In a
sense, he visited the “lands of the Varangians.” The
Hustynsky Chronicles, probably the most authoritative
chronicles of the ancient Ukraine has this to say: “In
the year 1013 our most reverend Father Antony arrived in
Kyiv and settled in a Varangian cave.”

It is a well-established
fact that the Lavra Pechersk Monastery was originally founded in
the caves (pechery - “caves” - in its name is evidence of
that) but the cave mentioned in the quoted Chronicles had
evidently something to do with the Varangians who played a
significant role in the early history of Kyivan-Rus - Ukraine (in
Western tradition Varangians are better known as Vikings or
Norsmen). There was even a controversial theory, much discussed
in the nineteenth century, that it was only thanks to the Vikings
that ancient Kyivan-Rus - Ukraine emerged as a mighty state of
Eastern Europe. Another theory treated the Vikings in Kyivan Rus
only as usurpers and plunderers. As it is so often is, the truth
lies somewhere between these two extremes.

There were nine waves of
southward migrations of Scandinavians from their severe northern
lands in the period from the 6th to 11th century AD. Many parts
of Europe were affected. The Vikings, these intrepid and fearless
warriors, reached the distant island of Newfoundland and shores
of North America, made their presence acutely felt in French
Normandy, conquered Sicily and penetrated as far as the Volga
river. Eric the Red Beard, William the Conqueror, Oleg the
Oracular are remarkable figures of the world history. The
Vikings-Varangians’ role in the early history of Kyivan-Rus -
Ukraine had been a particularly significant one. They exercised
their influence mostly in the military and religious spheres.
Take, for instance, the murder of Kyiv Princes Ascold and Dir,
committed by the Varangian Prince Oleg in the 9th century after
his troops stormed and captured Kyiv (this event has been
described in the chronicles and later commemorated by the
erection of the tomb at the grave of the slain Ascold; the tomb
has survived to the present day). About a hundred years after
Oleg's capture of Kyiv, in the times of Prince Igor (judging by
his name, a Varangian too), the Prince's troop was made of the
Varangian and local warriors in equal measure. The Varangian and
Slavic warriors took their military oaths separately because the
Varangians were already Christians and the Slavic warriors were
still pagan (incidentally, the texts of both the oaths have been
preserved for us in the chronicles). Scandinavia had gone
Christian two centuries before the Eastern Slavs. Christianity
had turned some of the belligerent Scandinavians to pious
believers. It is not hard to find evidence of this. Ivan and
Fedir, two Varangian martyrs, became Orthodox Christian saints.
Actually they were among the first saints of Kyivan-Rus -
Ukraine. These two Christian warriors were burned alive in a
locked house by the furious pagans who were enraged by their
refusal to surrender a man given to the heathens to be sacrificed
to the pagan gods.

Holy relics of the Reverend Fathers of the Caves in the
Far Caves.

An archaeologist in the Varangian Cave.

The Varangian caves. A seat for praying in the cell of
St. Antony.

Cross-Golgotha, cut into the wall by St. Antony.

No doubt the martyrs
Ivan and Fedir collected their treasures, to paraphrase the words
of Jesus Christ, in Heaven. But similarly there is no doubt that
there were Varangians whose main interest was to collect earthly
treasures. And these amassed treasures were usually hidden and
kept in caches. And what is a better place for a cache than a
cave in a secluded place? There is some evidence suggesting that
the “Varangian cave” in which St. Antony was reported to have
settled, had been used as a cache. There are two, somewhat
conflicting stories as to how this cave in the slope of a hill
above the Dnipro river not far from the site of the future
monastery, was used. The first story has it that it was a sort of
a warehouse for a Varangian garrison stationed in the village of
Berestovo which was a summer residence of Kyiv princes. And the
treasures kept in the cave were the spoils of war, that is,
earned in an “honest way.” The other story comes from a more
reliable source - the chronicles of the Lavra Monastery, called
Paterik. According to Paterik, in the year 1098 a monk named
Fedir was ordered by the father superior to live in the Varangian
cave. There he found a cache with a rich Varangian treasure. He
immediately hid it in the ground again in order to avoid “being
tempted by the Devil.” Another monk, named Vasyl saw Fedir
doing it. It so happened that the son of Kyiv Prince Mstyslav
Svyatopolkovych had somehow learned of a treasure hidden in the
cave. Fedir was cross-examined and he admitted that there was
indeed a cache with a treasure made up mostly of church ritual
vessels of “Lati”, that is of Varangian kind. Both the monks
were put to torture but they refused to let the Prince's son have
the treasure. Neither did they reveal the hiding place. They died
under torture. Their torturer was soon afterwards punished by God
and he died a cruel death. Today, scholars believe that the
church vessels had been hidden by the Varangian Christians who
were persecuted by Prince Svyatoslav in 971 AD for their
Christian faith.

Centuries later the
Varangian cache still evoked a greedy interest and in the 17th
century a treasure seeker, having found no treasure, left a
graffiti on the wall of the cave expressing his regret over his
bad luck. The number of those who paid visits to the cave
increased with the passage of time so considerably that in the
19th century the monks of the Lavra Monastery were forced to
erect a brick wall that blocked the access to the Varangian caves
from the side of the Dnipro river.

In popular opinion, the
caves, underground passages, all the “spooky” places were
full of secrets waiting to be revealed. Even today one might hear
incredible stories about “secret passages” connecting the
Lavra Monastery with the Troitsky-Illinsky Monastery in the town
of Chernihiv, a hundred miles away. Fantasies of similar kind
continue to circulate, the fantasists being encouraged by such
things as the opening to public of the Zvirynetsky Caves of the
Vydubetsky Monastery and the Feodosiyevsky Monastery in a
secluded place in the vicinity of the village of Khodosivka (not
far from Kyiv), or the discovery of the underground cavities in
the territory of the Mykhailivsky-Zlatoverkhy Monastery in Kyiv.

In recent years the
Varangian caves were thoroughly examined by scholars. It was a
welcome change from the treasure seekers. The whole network of
caves, now connected to the Distant Caves of the Lavra Monastery
(there are two major labyrinths in the territory of the Lavra
Monastery usually referred to as the Near and the Distant Caves),
was investigated. The archaeologists found amazing things there.
The Varangian Caves do differ in many respects from the other
monastic caves of the Monastery. There are nine passages dating
to no later than the 9th century, two cells for monks of the 11th
and 15th centuries, and a burial place in a side niche. And no
treasures. The Varangian Caves had been in no way linked to the
Distant Caves and had been accessible from the side of the Dnipro
river, in full correspondence with what the chronicles have to
say. In one of the cells the archaeologists discovered a cross
carved in the rock of the wall. It is also dated to the 11th
century. It is very likely that the cross was carved into the
wall by the hand of St. Antony himself and the cell could have
easily be the one he settled in! In other words, it is one more
proof of reliability of the Hustinsky Chronicles. Probably the
cross on the wall is the greatest treasure hidden in the
Varangian caves. So the archaeologists were in no way
disappointed by their failure to discover the Varangian gold and
silver.

By the end of the 11th
century the Varangians were completely assimilated into the
Kyivan-Rus population. There are still some words in the
Ukrainian language that had been borrowed from the Scandinavia
languages. And probably the cache with the Varangian gold and
silver is still there, in one of the Varangian caves in the steep
slopes of the Kyiv hills facing the Dnipro.
The search for treasures, spirituial and mundane, continues.

Based
on the materials supplied
by the Kyiv Pechersk Historical and Cultural Preserve.